LG BD530 1080p Network Blu-ray Disc Player

• Blu-ray, DVD and CD disc playback
• Full HD 1080p output makes the most of your HD TV
• Standard DVD up-scaling to 1080p makes your existing DVDs look great
• Access internet services YouTube, Picasa and Accuweather without your PC
• Access real time Blu-ray extras via BD-Live

This Black Friday, Blu-ray player was on my agenda, I have a 46" Samsung LCD HDTV with internet options. I did not want to go for internet enabled Blu-ray player to play netflix or Picasa or Youtube as I already have it in my TV. I wanted a best to the price and awesome quality Blu-ray player which has a brilliant blu-ray as well as DVD upscale conversion for HDTV resolution.

I bought this LG BD530 and Sony BDP-530 at the same time because Sony had the highest ranking in terms on voting on many sites including bestbuy,com. After connecting both players to my TV i used Bly-ray and it played very well on both player, I tried same Bluray disc on both player couple of times alternatively and could not see the difference. Bluray played brilliantly

When i came to DVD playing, after couple of runs with same DVD on same TV (with same settings) I found that LG has a excellent DVD upconversion as compared to Sony, Sony pics were a little more blurr as compared to LG BD530. I tested 2 different DVD movies (lord of the rings and American beauty) to check the DVD quality and I have to admit, LG was awesome. Also somehow I felt the LG remote is much user friendly than Sony remote, but that's a matter of individuals preference.

After carefully reading Sony's review I figured out that it;s sony blu-ray players internet abilities which took it;s rating so high and not the DVD upscale conversion qualities. If you have an old TV with no internet on it and want internet connectibility to watch netflix online, then probably Sony is your candidate. But if you have a new internet enabled TV and have a huge collection of DVD which you wanna keep it for a while and wanna enjoy over and over again, then LG is your best candidate.

I am returning back my Sony BDP-370 player tomorrow to Bestbuy. I hope this review helps to reader.

Santosh Gaikwad

Buy LG BD530 1080p Network Blu-ray Disc Player Now

I got this at sears when it was $65, it will be on sale again, try walmart if amazon doesn't lower price. It plays all my discs and most of my multimedia files. It will not play wmv files and doesn't seem to like my AAC files (plays MP3's okay), but will play H264/mov files if you rename them as .mp4, a common trick with these cheaper players. It powers my two external portable hd's and will play one of my two pen drives, but not both. Its upscaling of 420p material from the usb side not as good as my WD or my PS3, but plays native 1080i/p files with very impressive results.

It does have the BD live function if you want to plug a pen drive into it since it needs external storage. It has limited internet options right now, who cares about accuweather? LG updates their firmware online and my other LG equipment has seen third party hacks that improve it so I look forward to when this is hacked to provide either Netflix, or better yet Playon support.

It did freeze on me at least once as other reviews have noted, have to pull the plug to reset it.

Only 4 stars since it did freeze for no good reason, and I too will need to keep my WD Media player for awhile, but it this had netflix would have given it 5 stars, as for the price it just can't be beat. I will update when I have played with it a bit more, only had it the week so far.

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I have used this Blu Ray player for more than a week and it plays the following without any issues directly from Blue Ray disc as well as DVD, CD and USB:

DivxHD (Divx HD 720p and 1080p profile that create files with Divx extension) NOTE: DivxHD Plus profile creating mkv files seems not working

AVI ( I haven't tried all codecs but whatever I tried worked without any issues)

MKV

AVCHD

I was successfully able to play couple of 720p 4.35 GB mkv files with that's encoded with H264 & DTS audio with subtitle without any issues. Subtitle worked perfectly fine.

Files with DTS audio plays flawless directly on TV speakers without requiring any additional DTS receiver.

Very responsive remote control.

Played lots of MKV files of size 8GB and greater with h264 and DTS audio from an external USB drive and they all played very well. Subtitles were supported and no jitter in playback.

MKV playback is awesome and Up-conversion works great.I can clearly see the difference between regular playback and upconversion (the files I have used were IMAX HD documentaries and Disney Pixar movies i.e. quality of the original file was good to start with).

I tried Verbatim LTH some very cheap media from Meritline and Optical Quantam BD-R burned using IMGBURN in my LG WH10LS30 Blue Ray burner and everything worked flawless.

I tried about 20 of dirt cheap DVD media Dynex, Teon, Playo etc. which had avi files with variety of codecs recorded about 5-6 years ago and they all played without any issues.

Blu Ray disc loads really fast the picture quality is crystal clear. Also quality of You tube and picasa is great.

Overall, it's great inexpensive player that played many media from various sources. It played various file formats not even supported by Philips 5982 Divx player but I still can't retire my WD Live as its picky about codecs i.e. not all mkv files plays flawless and MOV doesn't work at this point.

UPDATE: I was successfully able to play Blu-Ray video files (m2ts) directly from hard drive via. USB connection. Menu is not supported but the files played successfully.

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I bought this player (despite my future purchase of a Playstation 3) mainly because I wanted a Blu-Ray player that could play MKV files. That let's me store a ton of content on an external hard drive, high definition content, and play it "on demand" without ever having to change a disc.

As far as MKV playback goes, it's hit and miss but for the most part MKV files work. It doesn't matter what size it is.

For MKV files that did NOT play I (and others) pinpointed the problem: if a file is encoded with level/profile 4.2 or higher it will NOT play on this player. If you get a file that does not play, run it through MKV2VOB. It has to transcode a lot of movies which takes time but there are a few that don't need transcoding. Playback is good and depends on the speed of your external hard drive. Controlling files can be hit or miss; some let you control things such as speed/fast forward/rewind etc while others will not. I have noticed a few lockups at times.

As far as Blu-Ray playing goes, once you get into the movie it's great. Other than that I think there are some options that were leftout of this player and its remote control that I would have liked such as title program (for discs and files).

The main problem with this player is its frequent lockups and freezes. There is also considerable lag with the remote and sometimes it takes over a minute for the player to respond in certain menus.

The internet connectivity is weird with this player. I have tried WB (Warner Brothers discs) and BD-Live does not work. Universal discs do work but you have to have the internet plugged in before you start the disc. If you do have it plugged in, it takes over two minutes to load up to the disc's menu.

I will update with other things I think of but for the price I think it's a good blu-ray player. It's actually better in a few respects (MKV file playback, DVD up conversion) than its older brother the BD550. On LG's website and the manual this player is referred to as the BD551 so if that tells you something.

UPDATE 1: As far as BD-live goes, a forum member on AVSforum found a method to get it to work. Welcome to a whole new world of commercials and unwanted trailers.

DJPOJACK:

"I was getting all those messages like the player needed to be hooked up to an internet connection or "coming soon"...etc..

This is how I got BD-LIVE to work:

-format USB thumb/drive (fat 16 or 32)

-boot up your LG 530 (without disc and without USB inserted) so it goes to main on-screen menu..

-go to setup

-go to others

-go to initialize

NOW...insert USB drive/device

You should notice that "BD Storage Clear" is now selectable...Select it and confirm "yes"...It will do a momentary "clear" (even though your USB drive is already empty).

Now, you leave that USB drive in there and load any Blu-Ray movie with BD-Live, and when you run the BD-Live features, it should work....

At least it did for me....

If you leave the USB drive in the slot, you can eject and load different Blu-Rays and BD-Live should still work (until your USB drive is full, which then you can initialize it again!)...

P.S. If you format or use this USB drive on any other device, it will probably corrupt/overwrite the BD530 BD-Live data....So, it's probably best to have a dedicated drive just for the BD530 (I.E. Just leave it in the USB slot FOREVAHHHHH!)

good luck

-drew"

I am not sure what are the negative reviews on here are all about, its possible some customers may have received a defective product from LG but mine has been working great! First off let me say I am not going to complain about the player not having Netflix, Rhapsody, Facebook ect. My TV has wifi built in that allows me to access Netflix so I had no need to shell out the extra money for a fancy player that could surf the full extent of the web. Those who wanted a player like that should have looked for something else. This player clearly states that its features are limited to Youtube, Picasa, and AccuWeather. To buy it and expect otherwise is poor shopping on the consumers' part. As far as video quality, I don't own a vast collection of Blu-rays so my experience has mostly been with upconverting DVD's, which the player does an excellent job with. Unlike the Memorex I own, this player minimizes almost all of the DVD grain and blur to the point that it almost looks as good as a blu-ray. The Blu-rays I have played also have shimmered in pure 1080p HD with this player. The real attraction for me though, is the USB drive. All you have to do is pop in an external hard drive or memory stick and the player is ready to play the contents whether it be video, picture, or music. I have watched two movies this way, one MPEG4 and the other AVI, and both played without a hiccup. Some reviewers have reported freezing and locking up, but I have experienced neither with my player. I haven't updated the firmware, though, so who knows if the new updates may actually be the cause of the problems. The player does take a little time to initially boot up, but I hardly consider waiting a few seconds to be an inconvenience. Overall, the LGBD530 is a great value and a player I recommend for anyone who's looking for a solid player to watch movies on via DVD, Blu-Ray, or USB. If you want something to play your Netflix with, look elsewhere.